Gallinari and Knicks squeak past Atlanta

Basketball Betting Lines

03/08/2010 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Danilo Gallinari made four three-pointers and finished with a game-high 27 points, as the New York Knicks escaped with a 99-98 win over the Atlanta Hawks at Madison Square Garden.

David Lee contributed a double-double with 19 points and 13 rebounds, while Al Harrington went for 14 points off the bench for the Knicks, who were able to recover from a 113-93 loss to New Jersey on Saturday.

New York, which had lost four of its last five coming into the contest, made 10-of-15 three-pointers after setting an NBA record by going 0-for-18 from three-point range in the setback to the Nets.

Josh Smith had a team-best 25 points to go along with 10 rebounds and six assists, while Joe Johnson ended with 22 points for Atlanta, which dropped its second straight after a four-game winning streak. Al Horford, who was unable to get off the would-be game-winning shot as time expired, turned in a solid performance with 18 points and 12 rebounds.

New York led by six after three quarters and its advantage ballooned to double-digits, 87-76, with 8:44 remaining thanks in part to back-to-back makes by Eddie House.

With the Knicks ahead by 10 a short time later, the Hawks went on an 11-2 run to make it a 97-96 game with 2:53 left. Johnson made 1-of-2 from the free- throw line to end the rally and get Atlanta within one.

Each team went cold over the next two minutes before Harrington's jumper with 50.5 seconds to play put New York up by three, 99-96. Smith's layup drew Atlanta within a point with 27.5 ticks on the clock before Toney Douglas' turnover with 7.9 seconds remaining gave the Hawks a last chance.

Smith's layup was blocked by Wilson Chandler from in close with 1.7 seconds to go, but Horford's short follow-up as the buzzer sounded was initially ruled as good. However, the basket was waved off after replays clearly showed the ball had not left Horford's hands before time expired, and the Knicks held on.

After a 27-27 opening quarter, things stayed close in the second with neither team able to pull away. Horford's short turnaround jumper in the last minute of the half gave the Hawks a 46-44 edge heading into the break.

In the third, Sergio Rodriguez hit three straight Knicks shots to power an 8-2 run to start the period and give New York a 52-48 lead. Harrington's trey in the final minute put the hosts up 76-70 after three.

Game Notes

The Knicks went 3-1 against Atlanta this season and have won 16 of the last 20 meetings between the teams at the Garden...New York shot 50.6 percent, while the Hawks made 42.5 percent of their shots, but only 3-of-17 from three-point range...Jamal Crawford ended with 16 points and six rebounds for Atlanta.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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